


Dreamt Music

by primeideal



Category: Blade Runner (Movies)
Genre: Character Death Fix, Gen, Headaches & Migraines, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:28:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28225380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/primeideal/pseuds/primeideal
Summary: Ana gives K a place to hide and recuperate. K returns the favor.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Dreamt Music

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DestielsDestiny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestielsDestiny/gifts).



Ironically, being a fugitive had yet to involve _going_ anywhere. Deckard was supposed to be dead, but Wallace would have cameras watching Vegas. K had also expected to be dead, but his body continued to persevere when any frail human, or maybe even a weak Nexus-6, would have given out. He couldn’t go home, he couldn’t go back to work, he couldn’t go to Mariette and Freysa’s people, so that left Stelline Laboratory. And Ana herself couldn’t leave the clean rooms, at least not until she got a real medical doctor who was willing to keep all of their secrets and make sense of her diagnosis. Maybe Freysa and Sapper had altered her records to keep her at arms’ reach, or maybe any child born of a replicant would have been just as susceptible to unfamiliar microbes.

But while finding someone trustworthy was nearly impossible, finding food and shelter and even light reading for two outlaws was surprisingly easy. It would only make Wallace suspicious if Ana abruptly quit her job and disappeared, health issues or no health issues, so the lab continued to run, and turn a hefty profit. There were storerooms and corridors and facilities off-limits to visitors, and K and Deckard had the run of the place. “I’ve been breaking the law for years,” Ana had pointed out, “and you were the only one who cared enough to investigate. I think you’re safe.”

It was late evening one night when Deckard and K sat down to some condensed protein. In his apartment, K would have savored whatever synth-smells and projections Joi used to disguise it as an old-fashioned delicacy. But having someone real to talk to more than made up for the blandness of the food.

“Ana working late?” Deckard asked. She had grown slightly more daring in preparation to eventually close down; a few of the memories she created were very loosely borrowed from Deckard and K. If the replicants turned out like them, she figured, they’d be more than prepared for the world.

“Not sure,” said K. “I can ask.”

“No need,” said Deckard, but K was already climbing down from his stool. He had not had a real childhood, an era of structured play or learning. The LAPD had always been work: sometimes good work, often bad work, but work. Being in hiding got boring when he didn’t know what he was supposed to _do._

When he reached the workfloor, the dome was completely dark, and for a moment he figured Ana must have reached a stopping point and paused for the night. Then he heard quiet snippets of instrumental music. Copland? Beethoven? What did he care, they were all the same to him. Were there replicants constructed without sight, who needed acute hearing and touch memories to do specialized work off-world?

He didn’t want to interrupt her if she was in the middle of something, but as he approached the dome, he saw that even the glow of the recorder was off. Not work, then. “Ana?”

“Mm?” she called.

“What are you doing?”

“Listening to the records.”

“I, uh...” _See_ would have been an exaggeration. “Yeah. Do you want a light?”

“No thanks.”

“Dinner?”

“Nooo,” said Ana, in a high-pitched, soft groan that suggested _she_ was actually only four years old.

“What’s going on?”

“I get these terrible headaches sometimes. Hurts to have the lights on. If I can’t really work or read, I just curl up in the dark.”

“Ana! There are first aid kits, I can sterilize a pill or something.”

“I’ve tried those,” she said ruefully.

“They don’t work?”

“I wouldn’t know; if I try to swallow or drink water it doesn’t stay down for long.”

“Is this Galatians syndrome?”

“I’m not sure. I couldn’t find any references on that, so I suspect that was just hacking. But who knows.”

Sapper had known, K thought. Freysa knew. But Ana couldn’t meet either of them. “Is there anything we can do?”

“Just keep it dark,” said Ana. “Once I fall asleep, it’s usually better the next day.”

“All right. Take care.” The wordless harmony followed him back towards the stairs, and he wondered how much of them Ana could reconstruct for a memory recording if she wanted. Did they degrade, copies of a copy that blurred with time?

“Well?” Deckard asked, once K had returned to their makeshift kitchen.

“She’s sick,” said K. “Bad headache, just wants to rest.”

Deckard’s scowl seemed to reflect frustration at his helplessness as much as commiseration for Ana’s pain. She had made it clear that she had no time for his regrets or might-have-beens. The fact that they had found each other, and that K had survived with them, was a miracle almost as improbable as the first. But even if Deckard had gotten to fuss over Ana every few months when the excruciating pains resurfaced, no parent liked to watch their child suffer for the first or tenth time.

* * *

K couldn’t help but be surprised when the doctor that Ana eventually confided in turned out to be a replicant herself—a more Earthbound version of Sapper Morton who had a Somali accent like Doc Badger’s. Not only did she thoroughly examine Ana and her files, she insisted on checking out Deckard’s and K’s scars as well, and K couldn’t even muster the “I’m a replicant, we heal fast” defenses. “Men,” said Zamzam, sighing at Ana. “Humans, replicants, they all think they’re invincible.”

She had recommended a series of stretches to K to ensure his range of motion wasn’t compromised, both in his torso where K had stabbed him and in the shoulder where he’d fought Sapper. The news for Ana was promising; she wasn’t congenitally immunocompromised. However, she’d spent so long in isolation that she’d missed out on many of the microbiota endemic in the 30s and 40s. She would be more vulnerable to common colds, and would be better off getting acclimatized to the outside in small doses rather than all at once. “Somewhere like Las Vegas,” Zamzam added, “is out of the question,” and then Deckard had to explain why he’d laughed so hard.

“It can’t be that bad,” K said. “I mean, if you survived the furnaces and ashes in Morrill Cole, you can survive anything. That place was a pit.”

“What the hell,” said Deckard, and then he said it several more times once they’d explained _that_. Both a “my child grew up _where_ ” “what the hell” and “the newest Blade Runners get to intimidate shady orphanage operators and I haven’t gotten to be bad cop for three decades” “what the hell.”

As for the headaches, Zamzam concluded, they were “just” migraines. “I’m not saying they’re minor,” she clarified. “But they’re not obscure or a genetic anomaly, either. There are lots of things we can try.”

Ana was diligent about taking medicine with her breakfast, but as she’d told K, pills wouldn’t help when she was in the throes of a migraine. “It’ll be fine,” she said. “I just have to read some trilingual diagram, stab myself with a needle, and dispose of it properly.”

“When you have a migraine and don’t like the lights on,” said Deckard.

Ana missed the sarcasm. “Right.”

“Have you ever given yourself a shot before?” K asked.

“Do I _look_ like I’ve ever given myself a shot? I mean, I guess I could have used that as the basis of some graphic memories, but I think Wallace wouldn’t be thrilled with me.”

“I mean...I’m used to patching myself up, I could help.”

“Yeah?” But Ana sounded less than thrilled about the prospect.

“Only if you want, I mean, not if it’d be weird.”

“Of _course_ I’d want help,” she said. “You’ve been—shot at and stabbed and almost drowned and beaten up, and here I am scared of needles. I’m useless.”

“First of all,” said K, checking himself before _I was_ built _for that_ came out. “I don’t have a doctorate in bioinformatics, either. Secondly, if someone’s stabbing me, I know how to aim at them to make them stop. I don’t think I’d do so well if my head started burning up with no reason.”

Ana blushed. “You don’t need to pity me.”

“That’s the problem with free will, kid,” said Deckard, “you build it in once and all of a sudden people start sympathizing with others and worrying about them.”

K laughed. “Terrible. Next thing you know, the whole world will be bogged down with empathy and concern, and then where will we be?”

“I don’t think they’re in a rush,” Deckard pointed out.

Fortunately, it was several weeks before the migraines struck again. But they did strike, and Ana was pale and shivering when she flushed the remnants of her condensed protein down the pneumchute. “You sure you don’t mind?” she asked, as K unwrapped the packaging.

“Of course not,” he said. “If you don’t mind taking your pants off in front of me, that is.”

Ana laughed through her pallor. “No offense, but I think of you as more of a little brother. Or an actor in a play I helped write.”

“I like the sound of that,” said K. “Mostly the first one.” He double-checked the diagram: this end up, hold for three seconds. He’d aimed far more complicated gadgets. “You ready?”

Ana winced. “Yeah.”

“You sure?”

“Please, just get it over with...”

Push, click—a long _one, two, three—_ hiss of air. Then carefully fold the shot in upon itself, harmless as a spent bullet. “That okay?”

“Yeah,” said Ana, rapidly bandaging the pinprick of blood.

“It didn’t hurt?”

“My head already hurts,” Ana pointed out. “A little jab isn’t gonna make it worse.”

“See, you’re tougher than you give yourself credit for.”

“No I’m not! Pain I’m _used_ to. It’s the fear—what if this doesn’t work? What if I get it wrong and waste the dose? What if the migraines just get worse and worse...”

“That’s the anxiety talking, not you.”

“A dualist replicant?” Ana rebuttoned her pants. “Now I’ve seen it all.”

“Try to rest,” said K. “Call out if you need us, yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Ana dismissively.

It was one of those rare days when it was dry enough to run a port-forge outside. Deckard had taken to melting down scrap metal and sculpting it into more animal crafts in lieu of wooden sculptures; he filled computer screens and scrap paper with his designs when it was too wet to go out, but scoffed at origami as “kid stuff.” K joined him, watching as a dog’s ears and nose took shape, then a tail.

“New stuff work?” Deckard asked, without looking up.

“Give it time,” said K. “But she’s a trooper. Gets that from you.”

Deckard gave a thin smile, pounding at the legs. “From both of us.”

An hour later, the dog cooling on the back steps, the crunch of crackers heralded Ana’s approach, appetite and all. “That really did help,” she said. “Thanks.”

“Of course,” said K.

“It’s still scary—you know, what if I build up a tolerance, what if it wears off—but at least I’m not trapped in the dark.”

“One day at a time.”

Ana nodded. “And this is a nice day.”

“You know what they say about Los Angeles,” said K. “If you don’t like the weather, just give it twenty-four hours.”

Deckard laughed, picking up the dog by a pair of tongs. “Kids.”


End file.
